Someone wrote, "I read the article above that you posted. I see the importance of the luminosity, I am just not sure how to make that happen. What set off this emptiness realization for me a week or so ago was this article that you posted:
No Awareness Does Not Mean Non-Existence of Awareness
I was able to see the emptiness because reading this made it ok for there to be awareness. I thought you had to throw away any conception of awareness in order for things to be non-dual. As in there is no witness. I always equate awareness with a witness/subject. I don't know how "go backward" and believe in an I AM/awareness/witness in order to get the luminosity. Is it a feeling that I am looking for? Clearly I have this, whatever it is, I'm just not sure what I am supposed to see or feel. What aspect of experience do I need to isolate that we are calling luminosity/I AM?
I have read about the I AM realization a million times. I have done the who am I enquiry a million times. It doesn't set off some amazing discovery for me like it does for so many other people.
I don't get koans. I get really scared whenever I feel weird meditation sensations that feel like I might be dying. I am not sure what is causing the problem. Perhaps fear.
I had a very dissolving type experience this morning when I paid attention to direct experience and it scared me terribly. It feels like death, like you will disappear, and frankly, I don't particularly want to die!
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Fearing No-Self
I will reply your msgs tonight
i took 2 years of self enquiry before coming to self-realisation of certainty of Being.. so certain patience is necessary
when inquiring don't think about future attainments though, as that will be completely missing the point of the simple immediacy of Being, your naked Presence.
it has absolutely nothing to do with a belief, it is the naked truth of your Existence when stripped of all beliefs and concepts. any concepts would obscure its naked purity and luminosity. it is your very Reality itself, what is more Real than Real.
The Simple Feeling of Being - Ken Wilber
or as john wheeler said,
Right now, as you read this, you exist and you are aware that you exist. You are undoubtedly present and aware. Before the next thought arises, you are absolutely certain of the fact of your own being, your own awareness, your own presence. This awareness is what you are; it is what you always have been. All thoughts, perceptions, sensations and feelings appear within or upon that. This awareness does not move, change or shift at any time. It is always free and completely untouched. However, it is not a thing or an object that you can see or grasp. The mind, being simply thoughts arising in awareness, cannot grasp it or know it or even think about it. Yet, as Bob says, you cannot deny the fact of your own being. It is palpably obvious, and yet, from the time we were born, no one has pointed this out. Once it is pointed out it can be grasped or understood very quickly because it is just a matter of noticing, ‘Oh, that is what I am!’ It is a bright, luminous, empty, presence of awareness; it is absolutely radiant, yet without form; it is seemingly intangible, but the most solid fact in your existence; it is effortlessly here right now, forever untouched. Without taking a step, you have arrived; you are home. No practice can reveal this because practices are in time and in the mind. Practices aim at a result, but you (as presence-awareness) are here already, only you don’t recognize it till it is pointed out. Once seen, you can’t lose it, and you don’t have to practice to exist, to be. This is, in essence, what Bob pointed out to me in the first conversation I had with him"
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John Tan sent two potent koans to a friend -- good for contemplation.
1) Without thoughts, tell me what is your very mind right now?
2) Without using any words or language, how do you experience ‘I’ right now?
(In the Zen tradition, we also have, "When you're not thinking of anything good and anything bad, at that moment, what is your original face?" (Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng), "What is the original face before your parents were born?"
A similar koan led to my initial sudden awakening in February 2010.)
..........................
Someone replied, “No mind"
That friend of ours told John Tan something similar and got 'smacked'.
"John Tan: Without any thought, tell me what is your very mind now?
Friend: Void. Hollow.
John Tan: Smack your head... lol.
Without using any words or language, how do you experience 'I' right now'?
Friend: ....something about personality, habits, opinions...
John Tan: If there is no thoughts, how can there be habits, opinions and personality? Everywhere you go, how can you miss it? Day in and day out, wherever and whenever there is, there 'you' are! How can 'you' distant yourself from 'yourself'?"
3
More by John Tan: "Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Zen, whatever tradition, how are they able to deny you from yourself? So who are You?"
Self-Enquiry is called a direct path for a reason:
“Don’t relate, don’t infer, don’t think. Authenticating ‘You’ yourself requires nothing of that. Not from teachers, books, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Zen or even Buddha, whatever comes from outside is knowledge. What that comes from the innermost depth of your own beingness, is the wisdom of you yourself.
There is no need to look for any answers. Ultimately, it is your own essence and nature. To leap from the inferencing, deducting and relating mind into the most direct and immediate authentication, the mind must cease completely and right back into the place before any formation of artificialities. If this ‘eye’ of immediacy isn’t open, everything is merely knowledge and opening this eye of direct perception is the beginning of the path that is pathless. Ok enough of chats and there have been too much words. Don’t sway and walk on. Happy journey!’
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Mr. R, I have been very direct to you and it is just a simple question of what is your mind right now and nothing else. There is no other path more straightforward than that.
I have told you to put aside, all thoughts, all teachings, even Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen and just [ask] ‘what is your mind right now?’. Isn’t that telling you straight to the point, not wasting time and words? I have also told you whatever comes from external is knowledge, put all those aside. Wisdom comes from within yourself directly. But you have cut and pasted me all the texts, conversations, Zen, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Madhyamaka that I have told you to put aside.
You asked me what is my advice. Still the same. Don’t go after experiences and knowledge, you have read and known enough, so return back to simplicity. Your duty is not to know more, but to eliminate all these and [get] back to the simplicity of the direct taste. Otherwise you will have to waste a few more years or decades to return back to what that is most simple, basic and direct.
And from this simplicity and directness, you then allow your nature to reveal the breadth and depth through constantly authenticating it in all moments and all states through engagement in different conditions.
So unless you drop everything and [get] back into a clean, pure, basic simplicity, there is no real progress in practice. Until you understand the treasure of simplicity and start back from there, every step forward is a retrogress." – John Tan, 2020